They have a long road back to normal life, and will need help learning about things like carpet, stairs, leashes - and about dangers like cars, noises like birds in the trees ... but we know one friend who has had two of these rescued Beagles here in Massachusetts. The funny thing is, once the beagle was comfortable with his surroundings, she learned what experienced Beagle people all know: you do not walk a beagle. The nose walks the beagle, the beagle walks you!

That video made me smile and cry at the same time.
A friend was telling me that Ursula from Haven of the Heart Animal Sanctuary has just rescued another five sheep and a goat that had been used for experiments and were about to be slaughtered because they had outlived their usefulness.
I wish there was some way we could publicly shame these laboratories that mistreat these poor animals and then cast them aside like an old shoe.

That was the hardest thing I ever watched. I really don't understand people sometimes. The trauma those poor dogs have gone through shows so clearly in their eyes. I hope they can all regain trust in humans and enjoy loving homes for the rest of their lives...

Some labs are very good at adopting animals out, and all labs are held to a high standard of care. Unfortunately, the general public does MUCH more harm than good when it comes to getting lab animals into good homes. Here is a copy/paste from a post I made here back in 2007:

Over the summer, a prestigious research lab called my school. There had been a research project approved there for which they had acquired ten dogs. Something happened, and the project was cancelled, so they had ten dogs without homes. Ten beautiful, six-month-old pups. They called the school because they would rather have seen these pups in loving homes than euthanized.

The school was scrambling to find foster homes for all of the puppies, so one student went to a local shelter to ask them for a foster spot in case we couldn't find fosters for all of the puppies right away. We were still going to find fosters among the students, but a few people had situations that would require them to wait a month or so before taking the dogs.

Not only did the shelter turn us down, they went off and badmouthed the research lab to EVERYONE. Word rapidly got back to the company that was originally going to run the trial, and the CEO told the lab to euthanize all of the puppies.

Now, why did the shelter have to do that? I know research isn't an ideal situation, but this lab had a surplus of healthy dogs and wanted to see them in loving homes because their staff CARED ABOUT THEM. People don't seem to realize that the standard of care labs are held to is enormously meticulous.

Now, thanks to so-called "animal welfare" people, ten six month old puppies are dead. You think the lab is going to think of us next time it has a surplus?

This isn't the first time something like this has happened...

Stanford used to have a HUGE program adopting out animals once they were done with various trials. They had a small breeding program for dobermans, breeding for narcolepsy. In each litter, there were a few healthy puppies who got adopted out to loving homes. Other animals used in other trials were also adopted out.

In one trial, the researcher doing the study noticed that it seemed to be taking a toll on a very nervous dog. She contacted the nursing staff and volunteered to pull the dog from the trial so he could be adopted out. He was, and that person wound up rehoming him to someone who contacted the media and put a giant picure of the dog's face in the newspaper under the headline "STANFORD RIPPED OUT MY VOCAL CORDS!"

Now, this dog had come to Stanford already debarked. Again, not ideal, but it wasn't Stanford's fault. BUT...after that bit of bad press, they stopped adopting out animals altogether. It breaks my heart to think of how many perfectly wonderful animals had their chances ruined by this so-called "animal welfare activist".